An Unexpected Night

by Laura Jardine

  “Yesterday morning,” he whispered. “When I woke up, I imagined this was how I woke up instead.” He slid a hand between them and touched her, just above where he was buried deep inside her body. “You want to come for me, Danielle?”

  As soon as he said that, her feet began to tingle. Her hands began to tingle. And she cried out, her world exploding around her. “Adam.”

  He sped up and finished inside her with a long shudder.

  Afterward, he lay on his back beside her, breathing heavily. They weren’t touching—except he was holding her hand.

  “That was … amazing,” she said, and felt a little stupid for saying it. Because she was just stating the obvious, and it was a rather clichéd thing to say, wasn’t it? But it was true.

  “My thoughts exactly.” He stroked his thumb over the back of her hand. “So you do scream when you orgasm sometimes.”

  “Is that what I do in your imagination?”

  “Usually, yes.” Letting go of her hand, he propped his head up and smiled down at her. “Do you want to… I mean…”

  “Do it again sometime?”

  He nodded.

  “Absolutely.” She glanced over his shoulder at her alarm clock. “But not this morning, because I need to get ready for work in a few minutes.” She should really be getting ready for work now, but she didn’t want to move. Surely she could spend a few more minutes lying in bed with Adam, then get ready in a hurry.

  His smile broadened before quickly disappearing.

  “Something wrong?” she asked.

  “No, no. I just…” He sighed. “Never mind.”

  “What is it?”

  “Well… Are you sure it doesn’t bother you? I mean, that I’ve thought about sleeping with you for a while now?”

  “I told you. It doesn’t.”

  Since when did she find him adorably awkward? The way he was having trouble getting the words out, the worried look on his face—it was cute. So was his ruffled hair. His bare chest and arms, on the other hand … those were different matters. Maybe she shouldn’t laugh at the canoeing trips he took up north in the summer, because they probably contributed to his appeal.

  “That was right before we had sex,” he said. “Your mind might not have been functioning properly.”

  “It wasn’t. But really, it doesn’t bother me. It’s sort of flattering. And hot. You can continue to do it all you like.”

  “Don’t worry, I will.” He kissed her forehead. “I… Shouldn’t you be leaving for work?”

  “Yeah, probably.”

  Adam sat up and leaned against the headboard. “Danielle, I want…” He shook his head. “I think you should put on a little show for me as you get dressed.”

  “That sort of thing work best when I’m taking clothes off, not putting them on.”

  “I’m aware of that. But you don’t have anything to take off at the moment.”

  She got up and walked to the closet, swaying her hips. She was getting used to this being-naked-in-front-of-Adam business.

  “Fine,” she said, turning back to him. She did her best to suppress her smile. “Since you asked.”

  But what had he been trying to tell her?

  ****

  “Idiot,” Adam muttered.

  He was referring to himself, of course.

  He walked to the subway station, cursing himself the whole way—the entire fifteen-minute walk.

  Several times he’d tried to tell Danielle that he wanted a relationship with her, but he hadn’t been able to get the words out.

  Part of the problem was that he didn’t know exactly how to say it. Saying “I want a relationship with you,” was straightforward, but it sounded a little odd to him. Better to say something like, “Can I take you out on a date next weekend?” And from that, she would understand he wanted more than sex. Or would she think he was only offering to take her out because he felt he should, because he wasn’t the sort of guy who slept with women he didn’t date? But he’d told her he’d been fantasizing about her for a long time. Didn’t that suggest he was in love with her? Or maybe she merely assumed that he thought she was smoking hot. Which she was. However…

  No wonder he hated approaching women. He had no fucking clue what to say when it came to these sorts of things.

  But when he’d had her against the wall or underneath him, it had been easy to say lots of dirty things to her. It had even been easy to tell her that he thought about fucking her all the damn time. In some ways, it was so simple and comfortable with her. Not that it had been forgettable—no, quite the opposite.

  Maybe he should have asked her out on a date while his cock was digging into her thigh; maybe it would have been easier to get the words out then. And she would have said yes—anything to get him inside her as fast as possible.

  He was just reaching the station now, and he spent the first half of the subway ride with his eyes closed, thinking about sex with Danielle, distracted from the matter at hand. Remembering her half-clothed, rubbing herself against him and…

  Focus.

  If she’d agreed right before they had sex, then afterward she might have wondered what the hell she’d been thinking, what the hell he’d been thinking, if he’d said it only because he was consumed with lust and didn’t mean it at all.

  Perhaps it would be best to wait a couple days, until he was in more functional state of mind, and decide how to proceed.

  But for now, he couldn’t help but grin. He’d slept with Danielle. And even though he’d built it up in his mind, so that it should have been impossible for reality to live up to his fantasies…

  It had.

  Chapter Four

  “Who’s this guy you’re dating?” Kara, the other waitress working on Wednesday, turned to Danielle and cocked an eyebrow.

  “What?”

  “You met someone, didn’t you?”

  “No.” Danielle leaned back on the bar and crossed her arms. “Why do you think I did?”

  “You’re playing coy. It’s not like you.”

  “Really. I didn’t meet anyone.” Which was true—she hadn’t met anyone. She wasn’t dating anyone. All she’d done was have sex with Adam. And she’d been thinking about it all week, but how did Kara—

  “Then why are you smiling? Seems like you have a little secret.”

  Damn. Was it really that obvious? Danielle wiped the smile off her face.

  “The couple above me stopped playing loud music at four in the morning. Trust me, it’s a big deal.” She glanced toward Mike, the bartender. He was smirking. “What about that woman who was chatting you up yesterday?” she asked him. “You seemed pretty into her.”

  “What’s this?” Kara’s eyes snapped to Mike then landed back on Danielle. “You were just trying to distract me from your mysterious new man.” She wagged her finger. “Your tricks won’t work on me.”

  “They almost did.”

  “Uh-uh. So who did you sleep with? Is that the right question?”

  “I guess.”

  “So? Spill. Damn, you’re really testing my patience tonight.”

  “That was sort of the point.” And Danielle was giving herself time to decide what to say.

  She hadn’t told anyone. Not Liz, although they’d met for drinks last night. Not Irina, although Danielle had been teasing her constantly about her budding office romance.

  Adam… This wasn’t the same as talking about any other hookup.

  But maybe she did want to tell someone. Just get it out.

  “I slept with Adam.” She shrugged—no big deal. Except it sort of was.

  “You slept with Adam?” Kara’s mouth fell open. “The guy you’ve been friends with for years, the one who helps you with your taxes and has to be dragged out of his apartment to have fun?”

  Okay, maybe she hadn’t needed to get it out. Danielle wished she had work to do, but the restaurant was empty. That was the reason they were able to have this conversation in the first place—Jim Bob’s Smokehouse wasn’t
usually busy at five o’clock during the week. The owner’s name was actually Bob, but he’d added “Jim” for fun. And he’d never held a gun in his life, but there were pictures of guns on the walls.

  She looked at an enormous picture of a rifle. “Yeah. Last Saturday.”

  “You’ve really been holding out on me. I’m disappointed.” Kara paused. “But I didn’t notice anything different about you until today. It was the whistling that really tipped me off. Did you sleep with him again last night?”

  “No.”

  “Details, woman! Come on. I’ve been with the same guy for six years, and I’m not exactly young. I have to live vicariously through you.”

  “We slept together. It was good. I haven’t seen him since.”

  “What does ‘good’ mean? Usually you tell me a little more than that. Like that time you met that Spanish couple and—”

  “Shh,” Danielle hissed. “It’s weird because he’s my friend, okay? We were talking about how neither of us had had sex in a long time, and somehow it happened. There may have been alcohol involved.” But she doubted that had anything to do with it. She hadn’t been drunk.

  “So what happens after you sleep with a friend?” Kara asked. “That’s one thing I’ve never done.”

  “I don’t know.”

  One of the Texas license plates on the wall clattered to the floor. Danielle bent over to pick it up.

  “Thought I saw him checking out your ass once,” Kara said. “One of the times he met you here after your shift. Can’t say I blame him. What do you think, Mike?”

  “I think I should stay out of this.”

  “Good call.” Danielle stood up and put the license plate back in its place.

  “So what does Adam want?” Kara asked.

  Danielle had spent a fair bit of time wondering about that. She should just ask him, but for some reason, she was scared to do it. Like how she’d been scared to ask him what he wanted to say on Saturday morning when he kept trailing off.

  “I’m not sure,” she said.

  “He might just think you’re really, really hot,” Mike offered.

  Kara glared at him. “I thought you were staying out of it. Though yes, she is hot.”

  And now Danielle understood why she was afraid. She didn’t want Adam to just think she was attractive. She wanted him to think she was more than a friend he’d slept with; she would be disappointed if he told her otherwise.

  ****

  Danielle got a text from Adam the following evening. It was the first time she’d heard from him in days. He asked if she wanted to have dinner tomorrow.

  Dinner? They didn’t usually have dinner together. Not that they’d never done it, but…

  Did he mean for this to be a date?

  I hope so!

  Yes, she wanted something more with Adam. Her heart had practically fluttered when she saw that he’d texted her. Sort of a ridiculous reaction that could only mean one thing.

  It wasn’t like she got starry-eyed over all the men she had sex with. Otherwise she would have endured more broken hearts than Jim Bob’s had Texas license plates. In fact, she hadn’t even been interested in something more than sex for a couple years. Before that, she’d had a few brief relationships with decent guys. She hadn’t been in love with any of them though.

  And before that? Well, that had been her jerk phase. Best not to think about all the assholes she’d dated when she was younger.

  Of course she’d always liked Adam … as a friend. But now, five years later, he’d suddenly become all she could think about. Seeing him again wasn’t just something she looked forward to; it was something she yearned for. It had gotten worse over the week, especially after her conversation with Kara yesterday.

  Danielle typed, Is this a date? then quickly deleted it. It was awkward to discuss this by text message. She was pretty sure he meant it to be a date, but maybe that was just because he thought it was the right thing to do after sleeping together. She could imagine Adam doing something like that. And somehow this made her smile at the same time as her heart plummeted to the ground. What if he didn’t want what she did? She might lose a friend, too.

  It had never occurred to her to date Adam until they’d had sex. But if it had, she would have brushed it off because—even though they got along well—they were so different. And now, the one thing she never would have thought of sounded absolutely perfect. Last weekend had shown her just how good they could be together, had opened her eyes to something she never would have considered.

  But maybe she’d felt this way for a long time, somewhere under the surface. Maybe that was the reason she hadn’t been interested in anyone else for a while, and it had just taken that one night to make her conscious of it.

  She hoped Adam felt the same way. Because she wanted to be more than friends.

  Her phone chirped again, and her hand trembled as she read the text from Adam. He was suggesting a taco place. Quite casual, so maybe it wasn’t a date after all?

  Danielle didn’t know what to think.

  ****

  He’d suggested Three Nights because it was close to his apartment and supposedly had the best tacos in the city—not that he’d tried them before. Adam wasn’t quite sure what he was going for, but he didn’t want to take her somewhere fancy, somewhere that screamed, “Date!!” Even though that’s what he wanted, he worried that might make her uncomfortable. Better to ease into it.

  Or was it? Maybe he should have gone with something more upscale. Then when he professed his undying love for her—not that he was going to say that, precisely—it would come as less of a surprise than it would at a taco joint.

  But on the other hand, he wouldn’t feel as much pressure at a place like Three Nights. It didn’t demand the same eloquence of words.

  Well, it was too late to change his mind now. He was sitting at a table in the back corner of the restaurant, staring at the menu without really seeing it as he waited for Danielle.

  He was twenty minutes early, so she’d probably be a while. A stupid move to arrive so early. Now he just had more time to get nervous. He resisted the urge to order some booze. It took an awful lot of alcohol to relax him even a little, so he’d have to really pound it back to calm himself down before she arrived. And he didn’t want her to see a bunch of empty glasses and think something was amiss. Nor did he want to seem intoxicated, of course.

  If only Adam could skip to the part after he told her how he felt, when she either nicely shot him down or agreed to go out with him. He had no idea which it would be. He hoped, but at the same time he told himself not to hope too much.

  It was too hard to analyze this situation logically, which was what he would normally do, so he didn’t try. It was impossible to think about Danielle in a purely logical way. He could list tons of things he liked about her, but somehow over the years, there was this undefinable something that had developed—at least for him. She was more than the sum…

  Great. He was sitting in a taco restaurant, thinking about how the woman he wanted was more than the sum of her parts. That did not sound romantic at all. He could do better than that. He just had to spit out words that didn’t make him seem like an idiot. If only—

  “Hey.”

  Startled, Adam dropped his menu on the floor.

  Danielle was early for once. And she looked gorgeous—as always. She wore a black dress that gave him a very nice view of her cleavage.

  “I’ll get it,” she said, bending over to pick up his menu and improving his view even further. He really loved this dress.

  She sat down and smiled at him, and they talked about the restaurant for a few minutes. It was almost like normal. Except she’d dressed up more than she usually would if they were hanging out together. So she probably assumed this was a date.

  And if she thought that it was a date and still agreed to come, that was a good sign, right?

  He was about to tell her how he felt—really, he was—when she said, “The couple above m
e hasn’t been playing loud music this week. Thank God.”

  “Do you think they moved?”

  “I hope so. But maybe they’re just on vacation.” She looked down and fiddled with her paper napkin. “There have been some funny reviews of Jim Bob’s lately. Want to see?”

  “Umm … sure.” Adam could tell her later. What was another minute or two?

  Danielle took out her phone and pulled up a restaurant review site. He leaned in close. At first he was distracted by her perfume, but eventually, he managed to read.

  [Four stars] I bet the owner’s name is actually Larry or Terry or Barry and he’s a liberal and the idea of carrying a gun scares the shit out of his pansy ass. It’s supposed to be an authentic southern restaurant. Ha! It sure ain’t. Food is good though.

  [One star] Only one vegan option. And it was much smaller than the platter of ribs my carnivorous father-in-law ordered. Meat and non-meat entrees should be the same size. (If meat options even have to exist. I avoid restaurants that kill sweet, innocent animals whenever possible. Most of them slaughter puppies, you know.) Yes, the vegan option was a third of the price. And yes, that platter of ribs was the extra-large order, but equality, people!

  [One star] It’s not a real smokehouse if it has a vegan option.

  [Three stars] I would give this place four stars, but they don’t give you bread. I couldn’t believe it! When I demanded a bread basket, they reluctantly gave me a couple slices, but only three packs of butter! Guess this is what I get for eating at a restaurant other than Ricci’s for the first time in ten years. Though it was sort of nice not to eat Italian food. (My daughter claims Ricci’s isn’t real Italian food, but I know she’s just messing with me.)

  Adam chuckled. “Have you ever written a review of a restaurant?”

  She shook her head. “But I’m glad other people do. Keeps me entertained. I’ve wasted hours reading stuff like this. Hours that would have been better spent on something else.”